Caudalie Divine Oil: Overpriced And Overhyped?

After watching people go on and on about Caudalie Divine Oil, I picked up a few bottles.

Caudalie Divine Oil is a perfumed dry oil. Here’s what Caudalie has to say about it:

This dry oil moisturizes, nourishes and enhances the face, body and hair, thanks to its unique formula made with exceptional blend of oils (grape, hibiscus, sesame and argan) combined with our patented anti-oxidant Polyphenols. It envelops the skin with a subtle, floral and sun-kissed fragrance, with woody notes.

To show you how much faith I had in this oil, I did not purchase a full sized 100mL bottle (for 49 bucks), I waited on Sephora to restock the 15mL bottle (for 9 bucks). The packaging on the mini bottle is elegant and sleek. When I cracked it open I was so confused because of the sprayer. I was like ‘wait, did I buy a perfume?’, but no, it’s oil, and yes it sprays out of the atomizer well…. almost too well, we will talk about that later.

Divine oil is a blend of grape oil, extra-virgin argan oil, extra-virgin hibiscus oil, and sesame oil. The scent is deep, woodsy, and floral. No specific perfume comes to mind when I spray this, but it’s a very beautiful scent.

I am not a fan of the way the oil disperses from the bottle. I would expect an oil to mist out, and this squirts out. It may sound petty to you, but when I use a dry spray oil, I want it to hit my skin and not run for the hills. You spray this on your skin and it’s running! You spray this on your hair and it’s going to gob up in one place. So if you are going to buy this, put it in the palm of your hand. Otherwise you are going to be greasy and disappointed.

Hair

It kills frizz, it’s not heavy, it does not weigh down the hair, and it leaves hair with this romantic and fragrant scent.

Body

It absorbs quickly, leave the skin moisturized with a non-greasy feel.

Face

It absorbs quickly, didn’t make my face breakout, and worked great to substitute my night cream for rich moisturization. It made my face a tad shinier than I prefer during the day. The smell of the oil lingered on my face for a few hours; depending on how you feel about scented face products, this could be a good thing, or a bad thing.

No matter where you put it-face, hair, or body, you will get a good 6 hours of moisture before you need to reapply.

I have all these good things to say about this oil, so why am I calling it overhyped?

Simple. There are cheaper oils on the market that do the same thing. Proclaim Natural 7 Oil is less than 10 bucks ($6.99 to be exact) for 237mL and it has sunflower seed oil, castor oil, grapeseed oil, sesame seed oil, olive oil, and argan oil. They have the same fillers, proclaim is just brighter in scent. Then Garnier came on the scene with a dry oil that is more citrus in scent, and contains olive oil, sesame oil, avocado oil, almond oil, apricot oil, shea butter, and orange peel oil all bottle up into 150mL for $7.99 or less. They all contain perfumes and fillers. None of them are all natural, none of them are cruelty free, Proclaim is vegan and paraben free, Caudalie is paraben free but not vegan.

So why $49?

Cause we will buy it not knowing that there are cheaper alternatives out there, that’s why.

Caudalie Divine Oil retails for $49 for the full sized 100mL bottle. The 15mL is $9. You can purchase at Sephora.com

I tried it and I was not impressed. In fact I still have half the bottle in my medicine cabinet. I have had way better success with grapeseed oil and sweet almond oil. Granted they aren’t dry oils but I can deal with being greasy for a while if it means I am moisturized. My true staple of moisture and silky skin is Neutrogena Body Oil. I am interested in trying the new Vaseline Spray and Go Lotion.
Great review 🙂